Tech CEOs summoned to Congress for another hearing on social media's risks for children

Social media CEOs once again are being called to testify before the Senate in light of mounting legal and public pressure to protect young users on their platforms.

The leaders of Meta, Alphabet, TikTok and Snap were invited to testify next month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a committee spokesperson confirmed Friday.

The hearing comes at an inflection point for social media as court cases, proposed legislation and increased advocacy place mounting pressure on the tech companies behind these platforms to protect children and teens who use them by making material changes to how they operate.

“Americans are realizing more and more every day that they cannot trust the CEOs at the helms of these companies because they do not put our safety first,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of watchdog group The Tech Oversight Project. “If it feels like the pace is accelerating, it’s because it is.”

The CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies were last called to testify before the same committee in January 2024, when lawmakers grilled them on questions about the exploitation of children on their platforms and social media's effects on young people’s lives.

The June 23 hearing is titled “Examining Tech Industry Practices and the Implications for Users and Families: Is This Social Media’s Big Tobacco Moment?” The executives were invited by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet and Google, which owns YouTube, Shou Zi Chew of TikTok and Evan Spiegel of Snap received the invitations for the upcoming hearing. Meta declined to comment. Representatives from the other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a hearing on Wednesday held by the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, senators heard from advocates and experts on children’s social media use, including parents who have lost their children to social media-related harms.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said at the hearing, “I think it’s time for us, on a bipartisan basis, to call these CEOs back and to ask them what’s happened in two years, to talk to them about the losses that have occurred and ask them what they’re doing.”

Social media companies have disputed allegations that they harm children’s mental health through deliberate design choices that addict kids to their platforms and fail to protect them from sexual predators and dangerous content. This year, several state and federal court cases are heading to trial, and while the details of each case vary, they are seeking to hold companies responsible for what happens on their platforms.

Two court case verdicts that came days apart in March held social media companies, and Meta in particular, accountable for harm to children using its services. A California jury determined that both Meta and YouTube designed their platforms to hook young users without concern for their well-being. TikTok and Snap were also named defendants in that case, but they settled before the trial began.

The day before the California verdict was reached, a New Mexico jury determined that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

The date of the hearing has significance for advocates. In 2024, Senators Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced a resolution to designate June 23 as Social Media Harms Victim Remembrance Day. The resolution encouraged the “government, industry and community stakeholders to take action to prevent social media-related harm.”

The remembrance day was put forward by families who trace the death of their children to social media harms. The mothers of Carson Bride and Alexander Neville, who both died on June 23, lead the initiative. Carson died by suicide at age 16 after severe cyberbullying and Alex was 14 when a drug dealer connected with him on Snapchat and sold him the pill that killed him.